“to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you’ve held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.”
―
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you’ve held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.”
―
for Linda G. Hill’s One-Liner Wednesday
Tao Talk 
This is brilliant. Thanks for sharing
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YW Sadje
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😉🙏
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Beautiful poem. Thank you for sharing!
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You are welcome!
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It’s a long time since I heard anything from Ellen Bass. Great Poem!
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Thanks, Bee. I never heard of her before today — found her quote on Goodreads. Sounds like I need to learn more about her.
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She co-wrote “The Courage to Heal” a book about how to heal from sexual abuse. It’s seen quite controversial but it helped me a lot. I never read anything else from her but now think I should 😊🙋♀️🐝
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Good advice to love life again in spite of everything.
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A lovely selection !
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Thank you
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